The social composition of the Communist nomenklatura: A comparison of Russia,Poland, and Hungary

Conclusion Reflecting, in conclusion, upon the significance of our inquiry into the social origins of the nomenklatura, we suggest that the main reason the term nomenklatura remains a loaded one in East European political discourse is that it raises the question of what the Communist period in East Europe meant, and what it might mean now. Was Communism an artificial break in the organic history of these societies, a history that now resumes? Or, were Communist institutions deeply embedded in the social logic of East European development in ways that mean the Communist legacy will endure into postcommunism? Our usage of the term upper class was calculated precisely to capture this notion of embeddedness. We argue that in some East European countries, most notably Russia, and probably Hungary as well, where the Communist elite became an organic component of the emerging social order as an upper class, it is not enough to ask if the Communistelites have reproduced or circulated. Whether an upper class existed, and to what degree, forms the class context of personnel changes: a lot of circulation at the individual level, for example, may mean nothing but the reproduction of privileges and advantages institutionalized during the Communist period via the upper class. Reproduction on the individual level, on the other hand, may indicate precisely the opposite; that an upper class did not form and therefore nomenklatura members were unable to enjoy such institutionalized mechanisms during the transition to postcommunism. To put it in the language of our introduction: to answer the question of whether the Communists are still in power, one has first to determine what kind of a social order Communism was in each country. It was these different social orders, comprising concrete groups and group identities, as distinct from the mechanisms of surplus allocation or the individuals who staffed them, which may have been left intact through the post-Communist transition.     

世代政治视角下台湾青年国家认同问题

2014年发生在台湾地区的太阳花学运中,台湾青年由政治冷漠群体走上台湾政治舞台,他们的运动诉求具有明显的反中倾向,出现中国认同危机。从世代政治视角分析发现,趋左的青年政治生命阶段、历史上特殊的群体成长经历和经验以及现实中两岸和平发展的利益分配问题等三方面导致了学运中台湾青年国家认同的异化。后太阳花时代,应以包容的态度对待台湾青年、务实的方式与他们分享发展利益、用中华文化软实力引导他们认同中国的提升路径。     

Literary Narratives of the Past: Generations of Memory and Everyday Life Under the Romanian Communist Regime

ABSTRACT

In Romania, the literary approach to the recent communist past centred on everyday life under the communist regime is usually associated with a nostalgic communist perspective. By reading communist nostalgia in the context of the communist politics that pervaded every aspect of everyday life, this paper traces the connections between narratives and moral responsibility at the level of Romanian literary productions. Many of the topics included in the collective volumes that bring together personal narratives of the past resonate with and influence the fictional creations of the past; in many cases, combining personal testimonies with fictional characters offered an improved mechanism for dealing with the past. The paper argues that the topic of daily life experiences under the communist regime can be further developed, raising awareness of the lack of discussions about moral responsibility at the societal level in post-totalitarian Romania. Even if the younger generations can use the literary narratives of the past to re-appropriate their predecessors’ life stories, the reduction of the past to visual or linguistic stereotypes deepens the separation between public and private memory.     

The Parable of Matthew: Identity Politics, Politics of Desire, and the Politics of Performance

Matthew Shepard's murder in October 1998 provides an opportunity to examine and reconsider identity politics as they play out around Matthew's body. After a sustained critique of identity politics, the author proposes, in their stead, a politics of performance, which offers a constructive alternative to current political agendas by allowing the simultaneous preservation and erasure of difference.     

Prophecy and Progress: Christianity and Dissent in Modern America

The categories of left and right, and the standard interpretive alignments of progressive Christianity with postmillennialism and of right-wing Protestantism with premillennialist fatalism in US historiography, are far from adequate. Prophetic politics, calling contemporary society to account for its ungodly ways, was widely dispersed among modern American Christians along the whole political spectrum. Moreover, there were many prophetic postmillennialists, who denounced society's iniquity while working to realize God's Kingdom, and there were reform premillennialists, who lamented a fallen world even as, paradoxically, they worked to make it more godly and less satanic.     

Informed Consent as Process: Problematizing Informed Consent in Organizational Ethnographies

This article examines the implications of informed consent in organizational ethnographies, where the research site is a bounded and formal institution that has its own sets of rules which govern action and membership. While there is considerable scholarship on the issue of ethics in ethnography in general, very little has been written about informed consent in organizational ethnographies where researchers often simultaneously observe managers, “studying” up according to Nadar, and employees referred to as “studying down”. Organizational researchers tend to discuss ethics in terms of obtaining informed consent for individual interviews or in terms of access to an organization as a research site. This essay examines ethical dilemmas experienced in fieldwork studying participatory work arrangements in a Mexican garment firm. By discussing practical issues of gaining access, problems of maintaining access and consent, and concerns of how gatekeeper consent affects subordinates, I problematize the practice of obtaining informed consent in organizations. I argue that thinking of informed consent as an on-going process that requires an active reflexivity on the part of the ethnographer will help researchers to navigate the ever-shifting web of power dynamics present in organizations.     

Relativism and Dissent: An Individualistic Interpretation of Terrorism

Terrorism is an incredibly dramatic problem of our times. The remedies taken so far do not seem to be able to solve the problem. This paper gives an alternative reading of the phenomenon: apart from the origin of a single terrorism and the specific means it may use, every terrorism simply represents, from an individualistic point of view, the measure of the ability of a system of rules to absorb the changes without anyone choosing a violent option.     

Dual Measures of Sexual Consent: A Confirmatory Factor Analysis of the Internal Consent Scale and External Consent Scale

Sexual assault, often defined as nonconsensual sex, is a problem among college students. Universities have made efforts to increase student awareness about sexual consent, which varies along two dimensions: internal feelings of wantedness and external expressions of consent. However, interventions focus on increasing knowledge of the external expression of consent despite the importance of both dimensions for effective sexual communication. A validated research tool that captures students’ ecological experiences along both dimensions is critical. The current study aimed to replicate and validate the factor structure of the Internal Consent Scale (ICS) and External Consent Scale (ECS) in a sample of 610 undergraduate students and to expand on prior work by examining associations with relationship to partner and sexual orientation. Confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) provided support for the ICS in its current form (i.e., model fit and factor loadings for the ICS were good). Although model fit for the ECS was good, one subscale, no response signals, had poor factor loadings (.16, .38); thus, suggestions are offered to improve its psychometric properties. Despite limitations of the ECS, these dual measures fill a gap in the consent literature by providing a tool to quantify internal and external aspects of sexual consent.     

Biology,Gender, and Politics:

This paper analyzes the application of the biopolitical perspective to explanations of gender differnces in political participation. Using the heuristic device of a causal model, two endocrine-based mechanisms proposed in political science literature are examined: 1) the linking of male androgens with more assertive kinds of political involvement; and 2) the linking of menstruation with cyclical mood changes and political behavior and attitudes. After a review of pertinent biological, psychological and political science literatures, both explanations are rejected. In the concluding section, an interactive biobehavioral paradigm is outlined, and several examples are suggested for further exploration of biological factors in political behavior and gender.     

Consent and Informed Consent: Their Ongoing Evolutions in Clinical Care and Research on Humans

The dual concepts of 'consent' and 'informed consent' continue to have three evolutions. The primary evolution of consent in the patient–physician relationship began in Great Britain in 1767 in the British case, Slater v. Baker and Stapleton , in the judge-made law of consent. The term 'informed consent' within the patient–physician relationship entered the judicial lexicon in the 1957 California appellate case, Salgo v. Leland Stanford Junior University . In its second evolution within research on humans following the Nuremberg trials that included experimental atrocities on humans, there is a key focus on clarifying the purpose of research and specifying the reasons for the need for an even more extensive risk disclosure to individuals considering volunteering for study participation. This second evolution continues with the further refinement of the Declaration of Helsinki and, within the USA, a focus on the Belmont Report . In its third evolution in research in the social science, there has been a recognition of problems with informed consent to questionnaire research. When questionnaires involve patients with moderate or severe posttraumatic stress disorder or abused individuals, there needs to be intense consideration focused on how to best protect the participants with these conditions during the questionnaire study.     

The Determinants of Student Migration to Poland Based on the Opolskie Voivodeship Study

Until recently Poland has been considered a country to emigrate from. However, the situation is now beginning to change, and Poland is becoming an immigration country. This also refers to student migration. Polish universities are becoming increasingly attractive to foreign students, who are mainly of Ukrainian origin. They only began to promote their services abroad in 2005 and their foreign student population growth dynamic is one of the highest in the world. The study was conducted in the Opolskie Voivodeship, the first region in Poland where systematic action was taken to address depopulation, and the steps to counteract population decline were included in its strategic policies. One of the objectives of such policies was to stimulate immigration. For this reason, it was decided that the Opolskie Voivodeship might serve as a lab to study migration processes, including the inflow of foreign students.